Research Infusion Collaboration Proposal

PROPOSAL for FY2007 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH INFUSION COLLABORATION

For Software Engineering Research Infusion collaborations starting Oct -Dec 2007

Collaboration proposals may be submitted any time from June 25, 2007 through Monday, July 23, 2007.

Proposal submission period ends: 5 PM EDT Monday, July 23, 2007.Email proposals to <>for receipt by 5 PM EDT on the due date.Late proposals will not be accepted.

Hardcopy proposals are not required. THIS REQUEST FOR COLLABORATIONS IS ONLY FOR NASA CIVIL SERVANTS AND EXISTING CONTACTORS. NO NEW CONTRACT VEHICLES WILL BE PUT IN PLACE.

1 Title/contact data

Proposal Title
Proposal ID / NASA USE ONLY
Planned Start Date
Planned End Date
Principal Investigator (PI)
Affiliation
Phone
Email address
NASA Point of Contact (POC)
Affiliation
Phone
Email address
Target NASA project name
Manager of the target project
Affiliation
Phone
Email
NASA center
Target project web site
Under what contractual vehicle will your work be performed? (complete appropriate field) / Existing grant or contract number & expiration date:
Civil service/JPL in-house effort:
Your organization’s Authorizing Official’s name
Authorizing Official’s Phone
Authorizing Official’s Email address
Authorizing Official’s surface mail address
Technology
Technology Developer

2 Problem statement (Max 8 Lines)

3 Goal

4 Definition of terms and abbreviations

5 Target project

6 Application of the technology to the target project

7 Management plan

8 Metrics

9 Personnel

10 Deliverables & schedule

Deliverable Title / Deliverable Descrption / Due Date

**As a minimum the project shall include an interim and final report of the collaboration. Ideally two versions of the final report will be delivered. One version should include the unsanitized results of the collaboration for internal review only. A sanitized version should also be delivered that is suitable for public release in that it does not include any ITAR data, SBU data, or project names or identifiers.

**The PI and POC should plan to support a teleconference review with program management on a quarterly (by calendar year) basis during the period of performance of the project. Each review is held during the last two weeks of the CY quarters (March, June, Sept, Dec). A template will be provided specifying the information to be submitted.

Explanation (as appropriate):

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11 Budget

11.1 Full-Cost Accounting Budget

FY07
Budget Authority (K$)
Civil servant labor / $
Civil Servant Travel / $
Procurement / $
Total Cost / $
Workforce
Direct Civil Servant (CS) Full Time Equivalents (FTEs)
On-Site Direct Contractor Work Year Equivalents (WYEs)
Co-funding (separate from proposed cost to Research Infusion) / $
Source of co-funding

Explanation (as appropriate):

11.2 Additional Budget Elements

Technology Provider
Technology Provider personnel time (indicate person-hours, days, weeks)
Technology Provider personnel cost / $
Travel / $
Other (for example: training, license, tech support, maintenance.)Specify: / $
Total Technology Provider cost / $

Explanation (as appropriate):

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Insert tables, diagrams, images, etc. on this page.

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Appendix A:

Explanations and Instructions for

Completing and Submitting a
Software Engineering Research Infusion Collaboration Proposal

Who can submit: The organizations that may submit proposals to Research Infusion are NASACenters, JPL, or organizations that have a contractual vehicle in place with NASA. Typically the contractual vehicle is the one under which the target application is being developed. Contact the SARP Research Infusion manager before you begin developing a proposal to confirm that your organization is qualified to submit. Contact –

Contact with SARP Research Infusion Manager: SARP Research Infusion management encourages you to discuss your ideas for collaboration and is available to provide feedback on a draft proposal before you submit your final.

Funding level, budget, co-funding: In the past, 4 – 6 projects in the range of $15,000 – $45,000 have been funded each year, totaling approximately $150,000. A similar total funding level is budgeted for FY 07. Funding is expected to be shared as appropriate (see the Budget discussion below) by the technology provider team and the software development team. While a few proposals in the past have been funded at the higher end of the range, proposals with budgets in the range of $25,000 - $30,000 are encouraged. If your proposed collaboration’s budget requirements cannot be reduced and would be too high to be funded entirely by Software Engineering Research Infusion, you should arrange co-funding for the proposed work. Co-funding is strongly encouraged and strengthens your proposal by providing supporting evidence for evaluation criteria 1 – 3 and 5.

Proposal length and format: The length of this proposal, excluding both Appendices (A and B) but including budget and all other sections, must not exceed 9 pages. Since the form fields in this file allow the insertion of text only, you may add up to 1 page of diagrams, tables, images, etc. on the immediately preceding page (before the Appendix A page), and reference these in this document. If you don’t want to use that page, it will not be counted toward the 9-page limit.

Proposal evaluation: The evaluation criteria are described in Appendix B.

Use the pulldown menu on the first page of this form to designate this version of your proposal as a “DRAFT” or “FINAL”. Insert the date in the field to the right of the pulldown menu.

1 Title / Contact data

• Proposal title
  The suggested naming convention: “Technology Infusion of [name of the research technology] into [name of the target project] at [name of your company or NASACenter]”

• Start and end dates
  Start date must be after Oct 1, 2007. End date must be prior to Sept 30, 2008. We expect that most collaborations will take 4 – 6 months and will be completed by July 31, 2008.

• Principal Investigator (PI)
  The PI represents the target organization/division that will use the new technology. The PI is responsible for carrying out the technology infusion. The PI must be a civil servant, a JPL employee, or a contractor with an organization that has a contractual vehicle in place with NASA. Typically this contractual vehicle is the contract under which the target application development is being conducted.

• NASA/JPL Point of Contact (POC)
  This is the NASA Civil Servant or JPL employee point of contact for the oversight and finance of the collaboration. Typically this is the NASA COTR or technical manager of the software development project to which the technology is being applied. The funding for the collaboration will be sent to the NASA/JPL POC.

• Target NASA project name
  The NASA software development project (or organization) into which the research technology will be infused.

• Manager of the target project
  This is the manager directly responsible for the target project (or organization). If the target project is being developed by a contractor, the manager is the contractor’s target project manager.

• NASACenter for the target project
  The NASA Center where the target project is being conducted. If the work is being done by an off-center contractor, specify the Center that is managing the target project.

• Contractual vehicle
  The NASA contract supporting the PI. (N/A if the PI is a NASA CS)

• Target Project web site
  The web site where the proposal evaluators can find out more about the target project.

• Technology
  Must be one of the 2007 Software Engineering Research Infusion technologies listed on the RI Website.

2Problem Statement
What problem will be solved by this technology on this target project. The problem should be related to software assurance. 8 lines or less.

3Goal
What measurable impact on the NASA target application will be seen after applying this technology to this target project. 6 lines or less.

4Definition of Terms

Define any technical terms that are likely to be unfamiliar to proposal evaluators, and all abbreviations and acronyms.

5Target Project
Describe the target project that the technology will be applied to. This section should take at most one page. Technical details about the target project should be provided only to the extent necessary for the Research Infusion proposal review panel to judge the appropriateness of the technology and the impact on NASA..
Do not give a lengthy discussion of project history; do not discuss aspects that are not relevant to judging the appropriateness of the technology and its impact on NASA.
(Under “Target project web site” of the section “Title/Contact Information” you are asked to provide the web site for the project where the review panel can learn more about it.) Focus on the importance of the project to NASA, including its relationship to other software development efforts and its visibility within NASA.Indicate whether this is flight/ground support software, research project, etc. Indicate the appropriate NASA NPR 7150.2 software classification system category (A – D).
List significant software assurance issues that the project has encountered or may be expected to encounter and that the Research Infusion technology will address—but discuss the application of the technology to this project in the next section, not here.
State the size of the application, the language, other relevant aspects of the development and runtime environments, and the number of people on the development team. This section provides the primary evidence for the “Impact on NASA” evaluation criterion (see Appendix B).

6Application of the technology to the target project
Explain why the technology will be of use to the project and describe the expected benefits to NASA. Describe how the technology addresses the software assurance issues that you listed in the previous section. Describe your approach to conducting the collaboration. Describe the steps that you will undertake as part of the collaboration. Provide evidence for the “Success leads to adoption” evaluation criterion: the technology, if successful in the proposed collaboration, will be adopted as part of the development organization’s practice. Since this collaboration is intended as an early step toward broader technology infusion, it is critical that you describe a clear and credible path to adoption by your organization.
This section also supports the “Impact on NASA” evaluation criterion.
Also, indicate what the impact will be on the target project if the collaboration is not undertaken.

7Management Plan
There are always risks in bringing a new technology into a project. List the technical risks of the technology for this collaboration—for example, the project uses a language/compiler that the tool can’t handle—and for the project—for example, the technology generates incorrect code that causes runtime errors in critical parts of the target application. List also the operational risks—for example, in a project that has already missed several milestones, a possible operational risk would be further schedule slippage threatening completion of the collaboration. For each risk, offer a mitigation strategy.
Clearly identify the roles and responsibilities of the target project personnel and the technology providers in the collaboration. Show that the technology providers will provide adequate training and other support for their technology. Show that the project has a plan to handle the effort and risk associated with introducing the technology. This section provides primary evidence for the “Feasibility” evaluation criterion—the management plan is sound, the risks are adequately identified and addressed.

8Metrics
List the observable benefits that will be seen by applying this technology. For each observable benefit, describe the metrics that will be collected, explain how that collection will occur, detail who will collect those metrics, the period of metric collection, and where they will be stored. Also, for your metrics, indicate how members of the Software Engineering Research Infusion team and the technology providers will be able to access the stored metrics. This section provides the primary evidence for the evaluation criterion “Adequate feedback”evaluation criterion.

9Personnel
Provide a short bio (approx 4 line; longer as appropriate for the Principal Investigator) for each contributing member of the collaboration’s target project development team (not the technology providers). This section provides supporting evidence for the “Feasibility” criterion—the skills of the participants are relevant

10Deliverables & schedule
Deliverables must include an end-of-collaboration final report and meeting with designated Software Engineering Research Infusion team members summarizing the collaboration’s accomplishment, the results of the metrics collection, and comments on possible future work involving the research technology. The meeting may be in the form of a telecon, WEBEX, or online meeting. The final report will follow a template to be provided by SARP management.

11Budget
This proposal requires a budget based on Full Cost Accounting.
The award is intended to support technology insertion into a project—not to further mature the research. Examples of technology insertion costs include training and consulting in the use of the technology, license fees in the case of commercial technologies, managing the application of the technology, applying the technology, collecting and analyzing data, and reporting results (both written reports and telecons). Technology licensing costs go under technology provider; additional license or hardware costs the target project incurs in order to use the technology go under Target Project.
Indicate (separately from any Software Engineering Research Infusion request) the approximate total level of co-funding, if any, that will be provided, and its source—for example, the researchers’ funding source, the target project budget, or a Center Director’s Discretionary Fund.
In the text “Explanation” field provided after the tables, you may provide further explanation or justification of the budget that you think appropriate.Co-funding enhances “Feasibility”, especially in cases where Research Infusion cannot fund the total cost.
This section provides primary evidence for the evaluation criterion “Good use of NASA funds” and secondary evidence for the “Feasibility” criterion—the funding is adequate.

Appendix B:

Evaluation Criteria

The Research Infusion collaboration proposal evaluation criteria and weightings are as follows, together with the Section that provides evidence for the criteria:

1. Feasibility – 25%
   “Management Plan” provides primary evidence. “Personnel” and “Budget” provide supporting evidence.

1. Impact on NASA – 35%
   “Target Project” provides primary evidence. “Application of the technology to the target project” provides supporting evidence.
   
2. Success leads to adoption – 25%
   “Application of the technology to the target project” provides primary evidence.
   
3. Adequate feedback – 5%
   “Metrics” provides primary evidence.
   
4. Good use of NASA funds – 10%
   “Budget” provides primary evidence.
   

Six sections of the proposal explicitly contribute to these criteria. However, all proposal sections are required and will contribute to the evaluation. If, for example, the Budget section is omitted, or is not based on Full Cost Accounting, the proposal will be not be evaluated.

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